The infantry is the most mobile of any division of the army. Men can go where horses and guns find it impossible. They can file silently through narrow passes or a maze of forest trees and underbrush. They can scale cliffs. They can dodge shell-holes and negotiate muddy roads and morasses. They can move slowly or quickly at will and can therefore take difficult positions where it is impossible quickly to bring up artillery support. The Ohio boys were in the line exposed to the merciless and cruel machine-gun and artillery fire of the enemy. It was said that the Germans had one machine gun for every two of our rifles. The conflict was desperate. The enemy realized that their cause depended upon their practical annihilation of the American troops. These fighters, who with such courage and disregard of danger had taken this part of the impregnable Hindenburg line, now threatened their supporting lines. It is no disgrace to acknowledge that during those awful initial days of the Argonne drive we paid the price that an army advancing must pay. Of course it was heart-breaking to see the long lines of our stretcher-bearers coming out of that belching brimstone line with the punctured and broken bodies of our boys. But it was glorious to know that the line had not wavered. _How long could they last?_ And how speedily could artillery be brought to their aid? These were the momentous questions that quivered on every lip and that gave imperative urgency to the commands and appeals of the officers who watched with choking emotion the slaughter of "their boys." As we gazed over the valley we saw to the left a line of slow-crawling tanks. They were about as long as Ford cars and as tall as a man. They were the French "baby tanks" coming up to help our boys clean out the machine-gun nests. It was perfectly fascinating and almost uncanny to watch tanks in action. There was no visible sign of life or power, nor any seeming direction to their motion. They crawled stealthily along, bowling over bushes or small trees or flattening out wire entanglements. Steep banks or deep gulleys were taken or crossed with equal ease. As a tank would creep up the side of a ridge it seemed to poise momentarily on the crest, the front part extending out into space until the center of gravity was passed, when the whole tank plunged down headlong. We instinctively held our breath until we saw it crawling away on the opposite side.